When our CEO, Jan, founded Next Matter in 2018, he knew that defining company values was essential to creating a positive and productive work environment. With that in mind, the early, 3-4 person team sat down to define an initial set of values that guided the first years of the company.

Fast forward to our series A funding round in April 2022, after which we welcomed many new members to the team. We were approaching 30 team members and had doubled the total team size over the previous 6 months. With this growth came the realization that it was time to reevaluate our values and ensure they reflected our current team.  Values are not static, they're constantly evolving, and it was important for us to identify a new set of values that could serve as a foundation for our continued growth.

So we dedicated a recent offsite in Berlin to the exclusive aim of co-developing our new company values. These values will help us to create a positive and productive work environment, make better decisions, and establish strong relationships with each other, our customers, and our partners. We'd like to share those values here.

The process in-brief: reflecting, defining, and sharing values

We started by doing individual work, reflecting on the values that had shaped our lives and sharing our stories with team members. Then, we came together as a team to cluster values and identify common themes. It was surprising to see how clearly our shared values emerged, which reconfirmed the strong connection that we felt throughout the process.

At this point, we had identified a set of values that accurately represented who we were as a team. As a final step, we reflected on our goals as a company and what we would like to achieve. This helped us to identify additional perspectives and values that we'll need in order to get where we want to be in the future.

The whole process felt very personal, with many of us sharing stories and connecting on a deeper level – truly a beautiful experience. In the end, we came up with the following values for Next Matter: caring, quality, impact, integrity, and collaboration.

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Caring

“We value empathy, respect, and awareness for our team and customers. Doing this allows us to create a work environment where people can develop their professional careers and honor private commitments.”

You might be wondering why caring is our most important value, since this might not be the first value that comes to mind when thinking about a fully-remote B2B SaaS company.

For us, this specific value means that we care about each other’s personal lives, friends, families, health, and even routines. All of our values come from the deep empathy we have for others and a desire to support each other both professionally and personally. The “caring” cluster emerged prominently when we collected our individual values, suggesting that caring itself is an integral part of our culture at Next Matter.

What does this mean in practice?

• We listen actively, support each other, and treat each other with kindness
• We are in charge of managing our own schedules, and respect each other’s boundaries
• We account for personal commitments and help each other grow

It doesn’t matter if you’re training for your next triathlon or need to make sure you can pick up your kids from school each day. We can account for these commitments, and will still be able to build an exceptional product and provide excellent customer service. 

Quality

“We strive for excellence in everything we do while owning failures along the way. Each setback and step forward helps us to continuously learn and improve to provide quality products and services to help our customers scale.”

Our second value is quality because that’s what we bring to our work each day. Striving for perfection can be limiting, but a dedication to quality allows for advancement while acknowledging that setbacks are integral to growth and improvement. As a result, our software is utilized by some of the most successful and fastest growing companies who similarly prioritize this standard of quality.

We committed to quality as a value because we want our team, customers, and new joiners to know that this is what Next Matter stands for. Quality comes with a set of expectations that we’re proud to hold strong to in our company culture. While you might think this is scary because it sets expectations, it’s why caring and quality are paired together. They harmonize as values and our team members and customers feel it.

What does this mean in practice? 

• We commit to highest quality standards while acknowledging that we’re on a learning path
• When we promise something, we deliver
• We support each other in our mission to deliver constant and unwavering quality

When someone joins our team, they know that they will be supported to grow with us while delivering work that will meet exceptional standards.

Impact

“We define clear outcomes and results to generate a measurable impact for our customers. Our team’s pragmatic approach to problems helps us to deliver products and services efficiently.”

Building upon caring and quality, we prioritize impact as our third value. Once we have the foundation of a supportive company culture and a high quality product, we can start changing industries and the way people work. 

The term “impact” is often perceived as a buzzword, lacking actual value and meaning. For us, however, impact is the driver of everything we do, and was extensively discussed during another team offsite in Barcelona where the focus was to discover our purpose as a team. We want our impact to affect our customers, team members, our company, and society as a whole. We hold ourselves accountable by defining measurable goals to make sure we move every day to fulfill our mission of empowering organizations to run excellent operations and unlock their full potential.

What does this mean in practice? 

• We have a pragmatic approach and get things done
• We are shaping industries and the future of work
• We are committed to measurable results, to track our impact, and to focus on activities that move the needle

As a team, we are convinced that trust, connectedness, and commitment to quality all support our goal of making a measurable impact on organizations and society.

Integrity

“We believe that integrity and honesty are the foundation of trust in any relationship. At Next Matter, we bring a candid attitude to our work and are sincere in our mission to help each other and our customers grow.”

Integrity can be interpreted in a number of different ways. For us, it means being honest, fair, and consistent. As a guiding value, we use integrity in everything we do, which includes how we provide feedback to each other and how we speak to customers. 

We strongly believe that candid conversations help us build trust and strengthen our relationships. They also help us improve, grow, and provide the most value to our customers. We are convinced that everyone deserves truth, respect, and empathy.

What does this mean in practice?

• We have honest and respectful conversations
• We treat all people as highly-valued individuals
• We are committed to candid feedback and a growth mindset

Our product is a collaborative tool that helps teams to work together. That’s why we value integrity and place it at the heart of how we treat and speak to each other every day.

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Collaboration

“We balance joint creation and individual contributions to create a fulfilling, remote-first workplace. Our team brings together a diversity of hearts, minds, and viewpoints to collaborate and deliver the finest results.”

As a remote team with diverse backgrounds spread across the world (16+ countries), we know that collaboration is key for reaching our mission. In addition to making sure we care about each other, deliver quality work, provide impact with what we do, and act with integrity, we also need to collaborate with each other in a way that enables us to do our best work.

To do this, we need to speak to one another honestly and openly while still balancing individual focus time with co-working sessions. We facilitate this through close attention to transparent communication and creating safe spaces for team members to express their ideas and concerns. 

What does this look like in practice?

• We embrace the power of diversity and encourage different viewpoints
• We openly communicate expectations and happily help each other
• We’re open to experimenting with our collaboration modes in order to constantly improve

It takes a team that collaborates well to make a difference in this world, and we strongly believe that with our values, we’ve managed to build the foundation for our future. 

5. Ready to join Next Matter?

If our values align with yours and you feel like this could be an environment for you to thrive and grow, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We are looking for people just like you to become part of our team.

Check out our open positions!

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